


A Year In Westchester

by marcicat



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-02
Updated: 2007-07-02
Packaged: 2018-03-01 11:48:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2771894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marcicat/pseuds/marcicat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quick-fics inspired by the X-Men movies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

1\. Fall

Ororo hated the fall. While the Xavier Institute for Gifted Children accepted new students year-round, fall always saw the largest influx. Every year, she stood at the dropoff point, watching the buses roll through. She saw every student -- the ones who stepped warily, the ones who laughed, and the ones who cried. She looked especially for the ones with shuttered eyes and closed expressions, so sure they already knew everything the world had to offer them; and the ones who looked so hopeful, like just being there would somehow make everything all right. She smiled and greeted and hugged and shook hands, and when it was all over, she found Hank in his lab, and he held her while she cried. She never felt more powerless than she did on arrival day. Charles had always believed, and his faith had never wavered. Ororo believed … most of the time … that continuing his dream was the right thing to do. But every year in the fall, she wondered.

2\. Winter

Winters were harsh in upstate New York, and even harsher in Canada. It was the perfect time to hole up in the mansion for a couple months -- except for Scott's stupid rule. "Anyone residing at the mansion for more than four weeks must either be enrolled as a student or signed up to teach classes." Logan grinned as he found his "course syllabus" and send it off to Scott's office. "Advanced Wilderness Survival Seminar" -- it met outdoors, and included several long overnight trips into the mountains, with minimal gear. In the three years that the school had offered the class, there hadn't been a single student. Logan grinned again. The Rule didn't say there had to be students.

3\. Spring

The spring quarter always passed too slowly for Bobby. Summer was fun, full of field trips and all the things they were never allowed to get away with during the official school year. In the fall there were friends to reunite with, new people to meet -- he was usually kept a little too busy with his role as unofficial counselor for what seemed like every homesick kid in the school. Sometimes it was one of the only things he felt good at, though; so much easier than the fighting he did as an X-Man, and not wound so tightly with guilt and fear. Winter was his favorite, of course -- he was in his element, and every cold snap and fresh snowfall filled him with energy and an odd sense of peace. Spring, though -- it seemed like everything bad in his life had happened during the spring. Spring meant losing his family, then his best friend, then his girlfriend. Spring was days getting longer, and less to do to fill them. Spring always left him with too much time for thinking.

4\. Summer

The problem with running a year-round residential school was that you couldn't assume that parents were covering basic life skills in the off months. There were no off months, which meant that somehow Scott had to find a way to include all that life training stuff into the yearly curriculum. Money management, sex ed, shopping, cooking, laundry. Scott groaned. Driving. That's what the summer quarter was for, and he'd done his damnedest to combine multiple problems into a single solution. In the summer, everyone could be a teacher, and anyone who taught got paid a stipend. Younger kids took classes like "Separating Your Whites 101," while the older kids could sign up for offerings including "Traveling for Mutants: Do You Need a Passport to Teleport to Canada?" It did tend to blur the lines between student and teacher, but Scott had always argued that pulling team members from the student body had the same effect, and so far he was winning. As he looked at the morass of syllabi, course ideas, and field trip requests on his desk, and then at the blank schedule file open on his computer, Scott sighed. Maybe winning was the wrong word.


	2. Advanced Wilderness Survival Seminar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Logan's class finally gets a student.

Logan leaned casually against the tall pine behind him, feeling the bark through his flannel shirt. It was colder than usual for December, and he was starting to wish he'd brought a jacket. Not that he was cold, exactly, just not as comfortable as he might be -- there was a reason he spent the winters in Westchester, after all. Another ten minutes and he could call it a day. Actually, he could call it a quarter. Teachers were required to show up for the first five days, to give students time to make last minute changes to their schedules. If there were no students by that point, Logan was off the hook for another winter. He lit a cigar. In three years, he'd never had a student, and each year he enjoyed pointing out to Scott how carefully he had followed Scott's rules -- after all, he couldn't control whether students wanted to take the class, could he?

With five minutes to go, Logan heard someone approaching, making slow progress up the steep path to his "outdoor classroom." It was possible that they wouldn't make it before his time was technically up; still, he was curious to see who it would be. Whoever it was, they walked with a shuffling sort of gait, and for all their slow pace, they didn't sound out of breath.

When the figure finally rounded the last bend and came into view, Logan felt a surge of surprise. It was a kid, one of the new ones, he thought, but it was hard to tell with all the winter clothes he had on. The kid shuffled to a stop a good ten feet in front of him. "Sorry I'm late, professor," he said. And then he yawned.

Logan frowned. Something weird was going on. He never had students, and this one was too young to meet the pre-req anyway. Was he there on a dare? A prank? "What are you doing here?" Logan said gruffly.

The kid blushed, or maybe his cheeks were just red from the cold, and he stammered his way through an answer. "Um, well -- I'm sort of here for class?" He rushed on before Logan could say anything. "It's just that -- my power -- and my parents told everyone I had mono, except I didn't -- and one of the girls said maybe you would understand."

Logan was going to kill Jubilee once he got back to the mansion. "You're not here for Wilderness Survival," he said.

"Not exactly," the kid said, sounding exhausted after his previous burst of words. "I -- maybe it would be better if I just --" There was a half-second pause. And then the air twisted, and where the boy had stood there was a slightly droopy-looking grizzly bear. Logan tried to step backwards and ran into the tree he'd been leaning on. Then the puzzle pieces seemed to slot together all at once. Bear. Tired bear. Winter.

"Come with me," Logan said, pushing away from the tree. He wasn't sure what Jubilee had told the kid, but yeah, he understood how it felt to fight your instincts. Surprisingly, the bear was much more graceful than the boy, and followed Logan without hesitation.

There was a storage building tucked into the hills a few minutes away. It held tools, and all the trail equipment that no one ever wanted to transport back and forth from the mansion. No heat or lights, but at least one of them had a fur coat, and it seemed both cave-like and safe enough. Logan made an expansive gesture as he opened the door. They both entered, and Logan shut the door again, sitting down with his back against it. If a bear could look grateful, this one did, and it slumped to the floor by Logan's feet. "Hey," Logan said. "You need me to wake you up for anything?" The bear rolled it's head from side to side. "Okay." Logan shrugged. "Sack out."

In seconds, there was a slow, rumbling snore coming from the bear. Logan pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, then changed his mind. He crossed his arms and closed his eyes. This was going to be the best class ever.


End file.
